THANKFUL FRIDAY

Today, I turn forty seven. I thought about this post last week and how I was going to say that this is the first month I’ve missed a period since I was maybe fourteen, but then my period started. It was almost two weeks late and included a little extra gore than usual. This had me doing an extensive search of medical journals to see how seriously I should take all this extra gore. It took an awful lot of digging to determine that it was probably due to a lack of ovulation. So, in honor of turning another year older, my ovaries are creeping into retirement and spitting out dust balls.

How fitting.

At first, I was a little sad because nothing really says “YOU’RE OLD” like an internal organ ceasing to function because it has reached the end of its life cycle. Then I got really annoyed at the level of research I had to do in order to determine that what was happening to my body is considered to be normal. Apparently, perimenopause and menopause are the real life Fight Club. The one thing I do know is that I have one to ten years of unpredictable menstrual cycles before it is really over. It is hard enough to get the appropriate attention for women’s health needs during their reproduction life stage, unless it is to restrict their reproductive rights. Forget any attention addressed to a woman’s needs when that stage ends. Remember when I said that thing about everything being a social construct? A woman’s aging body is so deeply rooted in a social construct of silence and invisibility that it will take multiple generations to rid this garden of the weeds.

But the revolution has begun. I’ve pre-ordered my copy of Karen Walrond’s new book, Radiant Rebellion (you should too) and I have a feeling it is going to be my handbook for fighting the war on growing older. It is not a war to fight aging, but a war against the negative ideas of aging.

Old, young, it’s all a perception and there are no rules. Recently, I was in the coffee line with a graduate student who was bemoaning adulthood and how difficult it was being a grown up. She is twenty five. Here was my tidbit of advice. I told her that there is no such thing as being a grown up. Sure, there are daily responsibilities that we didn’t have as children, but that doesn’t mean you now have to leave behind the joy and sense of play of childhood. I will even argue that you can maintain an aspect of being carefree. There are no rules other than the ones we place on ourselves. There may be outside voices with advice on how you should feel and act at a certain age, but they don’t know and really are probably only trying to sell you something. Take care of the basics like food, shelter, yearly health checks, and then do or behave any way you please.

I’m taking my own advice. Today is just a celebration of surviving another rotation around the sun. My aging body just makes me a target for the snake oil industry of anti-aging and as someone who tends to think of literal meanings of words, anti-aging sounds ridiculous and impossible. I will have none of that. Life cycle. Our lives are cyclic. My body is just cycling back to pre-teen age.

I'M DOING MY BEST HERE

Lately, I’ve been feeling like a pod person, just going through the motions. On the outside, everything looks normal. Someone tells a joke, I laugh. It may be a slightly hollow laugh, but it’s something. I am interacting socially. It is the in between moments, those times when I’m alone in the car or walking the building, when I’ll realize at some point in the middle of the activity that I am not thinking of anything. Those moments are full robot mode, like a switch has been pushed to the off setting. My brain is not churning with writing ideas. Memories that often play like out like movies are staying locked away in the filing cabinet at the back of my brain. I’m not mentally placing photos on walls or designing yoga classes. There’s no making note of the things I am seeing as I walk or drive by. It’s just an absence of all thoughts.

On top of the blank empty hole that is my brain, my body feels like it is on loan from the Pillsbury Doughboy. Michael got me an Anthropologie gift card for Christmas, which I’m usually quick to spend, but Ive browsed the sale items both in shops and online and left with nothing. I don’t want to even try on clothes partly because of the whole doughboy situation but also because it just feels exhausting to remove all the winter layers just to try on something that I probably won’t be happy with. There is nothing worse than standing in the cruel lighting of a dressing room and trying on a mini dress that fits me in weird places and not others, my winter white legs bouncing light off the mirror. I always leave my socks on in these situations and the whole half dressed, bare legs, with socks look is particularly sad, but I know if I want to get the most out of that gift card, I’m going to have to try on a number of items and chose wisely. Heaven forbid I spend it all on one full priced item.

Maybe in the Spring, when I can see colors again….

Saturday, Michael and I went downtown to check out the space where I will be hanging pictures in May and to eat lunch at new to us Korean place. We parked somewhere in between both places so that we had to walk over to the coffee shop and then back in the other direction to the restaurant. We didn’t spend a long amount of time looking over the wall space for the showing. I took some pictures of the walls and Michael and I sat with hot drinks while I contemplated what I might want to print. Since we had some time to kill before the Korean place opened for lunch, we strolled for a few blocks, looking into shop windows and speculating on businesses in the area. For the first time in a long time, I felt a spark and an urge to get my camera out. I even got into it and at one point had to tell Michael to wait. When he asked what I was doing, I said “I need to stand in the middle of the street for a minute.” This is nothing he has not heard before, but when I was finally back on the sidewalk I knew that I would have to visit this spot again. I took a good picture, but not a great better. That good picture reminded me that I can do better.

I want to do better.

There are moments where I am really trying to not be that pod person. I can still feel a spark to take pictures. I signed up for an aerial yoga class this evening to force myself into some hanging upside down play time. I plugged my ears into some dance party tunes and moved my body. And then I spent that gift card on singular, full price item.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Thursday morning, we all woke up around here to a thin layer of snow coating everything outside. The skies remained dark for most of the day, a stark contrast to the previous days. Our first week and a half of January has been fairly mild with temperatures reaching sixty degrees during the day and bright sunlight flooding in through all of the windows. The weather helped erase the memory of the deathly freezing temps we had around the holidays.

January is a yo-yo month for many reasons.

I received a card from my mother early in the week and I can see where she started to write my brother’s name, then my sister’s name before finally landing on mine on the envelope. This is an old habit. I do not remember a time when, while calling to me from another room, my mother didn’t run through the names of her previous children before settling on mine. I have always been some form of RandyJanellRaJaCindy. It has never bothered me because I know my mother was keeping track of all of the things at once, making sure we were at piano lessons or dance class or band or choir practice. On top of all of that was her career and maintaining a household. Sure, my dad helped out as best as he knew how, but he wasn’t the one laying on the floor of the sewing room while I attempted to construct my 4-H sewing projects. My mother’s only saving grace was that our age differences made us three separate children.

The lessons I have learned and continue to learn from my mother are invaluable. I have learned through her examples of strength and independence to be the strong capable woman I am today. My mother celebrates a birthday on Sunday, another year of survival. In spite of her beliefs and views on growing older, I am truly grateful to be able to celebrate another year of her life. My wish for her is that her day is filled with good wishes, sunshine that floods her windows and creates dancing rainbow reflections, ease, and the knowledge that she is loved.

DEHYDRATION

In the dark morning hours of Sunday, I dreamed that I was at a spa for a spa day. That’s not a far fetch dream. Michael got me a gift card for a spa day for Christmas and I’m all booked for the twenty first. In this dream, I went into a room that was very hospital like and removed my clothes. Then I peed on the floor (because dreams are crazy). My massage therapist then told me to lie down on the massage table face up. She covered me with blankets and then raised the bars up on both sides of the table. The table turned out to be a hospital bed. Then she spent five minutes digging for a vein in my hand so that she could hook me up to a saline IV. The therapist patted my other hand and said “We’re just going to let you rest here for a few minutes and absorb some fluids.” Then she pulled a curtain around me and left me alone.

I woke up thinking that I really needed to drink more water.

I also really hope that this is not how my actual spa day is going to play out.

Oh, it must be that time of year when I have to be reminded to care for myself. I’m not talking about massages and bubble baths kind of care, but the basics. Drink water. Trim nails. Eat a green vegetable. Step away from the cheese. That last on is much harder than it sounds. Months ago I told Michael I wanted a cheese cake for my birthday. He replied “Oh, you want me to make you a cheesecake for your birthday?” and I said “No. I want a cake made out of wheels of cheese for my birthday.” Then Michael said “What?! Is that a thing?!” while googling it and discovering that yes it is a thing. The first layer is already sitting in the fridge because it was on sale at Whole Foods during Christmas. It didn’t hit me until I made our New Year’s Eve charcuterie board that I had asked for an exorbitant amount of cheese.

We will be freezing leftover birthday cheese cake.

I still stand one hundred percent behind my beliefs that making resolutions in January is a waste of time. No one is in a good headspace to start new projects or pick up the old projects. We’re all still recovering from our holiday gatherings and the clean up from those holiday gatherings. I started the New Year with yet another restructuring at work. It’s nothing bad, in fact it is a very good thing, but there’s a lot of new things and questions and weirdness. I’m losing my yoga space and I’m going to have to hunt down a new one. I thought this week, I’d work on consistency in my yoga practice, my walks and going back to torture class. I’m saying no to elevators and I’ve re-introduced a timed twenty minute eating time.

I’ve also had a liter and a half of water today.

I’m not setting any big goals for myself this year because some big goals have already been established for me. A manager of a downtown coffee place posted a request for local artists in a private Facebook group that Michael is part of. He sent her a link to my website and she contacted me last week about a May/June showing for my photography. I’ve been scared to say anything about it because the last time I was supposed to do something like this, the world shut down and I lost my commission. Also, it didn’t really feel legit since I didn’t do anything. She just went online and looked at my photography page. All I had to do was say ‘yes’. I confirmed the dates with the manager yesterday and I’ll go visit the space on Saturday, but I feel like I have all the photos I need to fill the walls. I just need to print and frame them.

I start to get a little bit hyperventally when I think about it, but then I remember all the preparation I’ve already done and how there is not that much left for me to do other than just print the pictures. Maybe if someone came to me and said “hey, we want to publish your book in October.”, I’d finish writing a book. Apparently this how I get things accomplished. I just need to set back and do nothing until someone tells me to do something.

Drink some water. Eat a green vegetable.

SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED

Okay, I’m going to tell a story about a mishap with a Christmas present order, but I’m not going to name names because it all worked out and I generally like this company. Here’s what happened. Way back in early November, I got a notice that one of my favorite t-shirt places was having a big sale. So I thought “Oh! Christmas presents for the Cabbage!” They have a few of my older t-shirts from this place and they love them. I thought this would be easy and perfect. While I was browsing around, I came across a T-shirt that said “Gender Roles are a Social Construct” and yelped with glee and put it into my cart for the Cabbage. I ended up buying six T-shirts that day, three for the Cabbage and three for Michael. They arrived at the house two weeks later and I just left them in the bag. I figured I could wait to open the bag when I got ready to wrap gifts.

Cut to the night before Christmas.

I opened the bag of T-shirts and started to put Michael’s in one pile and the Cabbage’s in another. They were all there except one. The T-shirt I was most excited about, the Gender Roles T-shirt, was missing and in it’s place was a very bizarro and explicit T-shirt. It has the words ‘cum on me’ on the T-shirt, along with a name that I’m not using. I was stunned and I immediately went to Michael. I contacted customer service while he searched their website. I told customer service that I didn’t even think to check my order early because I have ordered many times from them and never had an issue. Then I had to wait until after the holiday to get a response. This left me plenty of time to stew and fret over the whole thing. We even searched the website and I don’t even think they sell this T-shirt. When customer service returned my message, they were immediately apologetic. They promptly sent out the correct shirt without question and told me to “destroy” the terrible T-shirt.

The fact that they used the words “destroy” really makes me believe that there was some malicious intent at play here.

Two of the t-shirts had planets holding hands on them, Michael’s T-shirts were all bicycle or scooter related. The Gender Roles T-shirt was the only one that someone might see has controversial or political. The more I think about it, the more I firmly believe that someone working in the warehouse the day my order was filled targeted my order because of that T-shirt. It’s possible the person thought they were real funny and maybe it could have been a funny prank if the shirt had said anything clever or funny. The phrasing on this shirt is intentionally malicious, as if this person felt like they were teaching me a lesson. It is a total cliche of toxic masculinity. Which is a concept that is also a social construct.

social construct: an idea that has been created and accepted by the people in a society - Webster’s Dictionary

Every thing is a social construct.

Michael thinks it was all just a simple mistake. He believes that robots fill the orders. He is not as jaded as I am or has had as many encounters with the type of men who like to degrade and mistreat women. And maybe he’s right. Maybe I am seeing more into this than what is truly there because of my encounters with those types of men. If this was intentional, it didn’t work. The Cabbage received their Gender Roles are a Social Construct T-shirt on Friday and was thrilled. They love it and wore it the next day. We went to a gathering of camp friends where everyone there told them how cool they looked and what a great shirt they were wearing.

And that’s how I’m training them to be their own Yoshimi, so that one day they can also fight evil natured robots.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Many of you may not know that I took the MCAT before I took the GRE to apply for grad school. I was still undecided about medical school. Honestly, I didn’t know what I wanted. Here is what I knew: I was flooded with excitement and wonder whenever I looked in a microscope and even the smallest scientific discovery made me clap my hands with glee. Life around us is fascinating and the tiny life forms of this planet are spectacular. I did very well on the MCAT, well enough to probably get in to medical school, but something told me that I would not find that life to be as fascinating.

When I started working for Margaret, I didn’t know anything about Dictyostelium, but I learned very quickly how to grow, culture and care for these little soil amebas, as well as manipulating them for microscopy viewing. When food is scarce for Dicty, they’ll send out a signal to other Dicty cells in the area. Then they all group together to form a slug that eventually transforms itself. The head of the slug becomes spores while the rest turn into a stalk with a fruiting body on the end containing dormant cells that can fall off under more favorable conditions. A large portion of the cell community dies so that some cells can live on later when there’s more food or the environment is nicer. We kept plates of Dicty in this form and I remember asking Margaret once about seeing them like this in the wild. She assured me that it was possible to find Dicty in the wild as fruiting bodies and since then I’ve been a little obsessed with the idea. 2022 was my year for seeing Dicty in the wild. First, Heather sent me a picture of them growing on her car. Then I found some hanging off my porch light. That sighting made me light up and immediately morph into Jordan from Real Genius. I excitedly told Michael all about the life cycle of Dicty while I took photos of our porch light.

Recently I’ve been talking to one of our graduate students about making miso. He’s been experimenting with trying to make his own koji (think starter, like sourdough, but with Aspergillus oryzae instead of yeast). This week he brought me a book on making koji and we had a long nerdy talk about trying to culture the powder koji starter that he has. I helped him get set up on a microscope and then went back to my desk. I started flipping through the pages of the book and came across some glossy prints of microscopic images and I got so excited. I ran back into the microscopy room and sat down next the grad student and started blathering about culturing and checking strains with microscopy and I got really excited about making my own miso. The part that excites about making miso has very little to do with making actual miso, but a whole lot to do with the science side of fermentation.

So here’s my gratitude. I am so grateful to be in a position where I have been able to maintain my excitement and enthusiasm for life sciences. With my job and the people I get to interact with every day, it sometimes feels like a dream. It is the difference between just having a job and getting to choose your job and that is a privilege.

TALK DIRTY TO ME

We recently watched Nick Kroll’s latest Netflix standup special, Little Big Boy. It was the kind of comedy special that had something for everyone and one of the few that the Cabbage has watched all the way through with us. Usually they disappear around the half way mark because usually that’s when the comedian choses to use their sexually explicit material. I don’t blame them. There’s many a comedian that Michael subjects us too that I don’t think is funny, but Nick Kroll’s special was pretty funny and relatable. He has this bit where he talks to himself using what he likes to believe is Jason Statham voice. He has these talks while staring at himself in a mirror and one would like to think they’re pep talks, but they are not. His inner Jason Statham says the most horrible things to Nick. It was so bad that at one point I looked at Michael and said “I thought I trash talked myself, but this guy wins in self trash talk.”

Really, I was appalled but also very impressed.

This week, I’ve been working on my color coded Google calendar in attempt to make it a little more honest. The 5:30 AM wake up call is not happening right now because it’s cold and dark and I’m in full on hibernation mode. When the weather changed over to not bearable outside weather, I kept the dog walk time on the calendar thinking I would still get up and get on my yoga mat. That hasn’t happened except maybe once or twice. Did I mention that it’s cold and dark and that I am a hibernating animal? As I removed that color block from my calendar, I expected to hear something from my inner trash talker, but instead another voice spoke up and said “remove something else!” Then I just started deleting all of the things that are on my calendar that are intentions and added the things that are set in stone dates, like doctors appointments and planned weekend events.

Then I took it all one step further. There are large salmon colored blocks on my calendar for Monday through Friday labelled ‘work’. That’s it. No details about what that ‘work’ is or scheduled work related things. Just work. Last year I noticed that I was double booking myself for things at work, scheduling training times for people when I had promised to help someone else on a different microscope. That kind of thing. Part of this has something to do with microscope availability, but a lot of it has something to do with my inability to say no. I’m all “no worries, I can do it all.” This is false. So, I looked at my week and the actual scheduled things in my work day and started making more salmon colored blocks to overlay the work block. Salmon is the color I’ve chosen for work related things. I don’t know why. It is not my favorite color. I’ve saved that color for things that I really like doing, not that I don’t like my job. I like my job about 90% of the time. I enjoy the color of salmon about the same amount.

This isn’t about colors.

This is about recognizing the time spent doing things, and by golly, I do things. Lots of things. I think I’m doing nothing or very little, but I am doing a lot of things. Sure there’s a chunk of time between 5:00 PM and 8:45 PM that has nothing scheduled, but I haven’t gotten around to adding ‘make/eat dinner’, ‘clean kitchen’, ‘get lunch together for the next day’, and ‘sit on my butt on the couch watching TV’ to the calendar. It’s not always TV; sometimes I’m reading. Anyway. I haven’t added ‘free time’ to my calendar and I look at those empty time slots and see them as moments when I can do what ever the fuck I want. And this is where my inner trash talker wants to start in.

Who do I think I am to think I have time for sitting on my butt doing nothing?

I’ll tell you who I think I am. I am the person that had to explain to someone that they cannot use this particular microscope to image 560 and 594 at the same time because they cannot be spectrally separated. I am the person that sat down with a graduate student and confirmed fluorescent signal before setting up a twenty four slide batch imaging run. I am the person who taught a chair yoga class during lunch and then ate lunch at my desk while reading an article titled “Integration of whole transcriptome spatial profiling with protein markers”. I was the person to clean out the pool of oil someone left in a 20x air objective so someone else could actually use it. And if you don’t understand even half of the things I’ve just listed above, then at the very least you understand that ‘work’ means WORK.

My inner trash talker barely even exists.

IT'S ANOTHER NEW YEAR

As a little kid, I was always under the impression that something magical would happen when the clock struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, like we would be able to visually see the difference between the old and new year. I would do my best to stay awake. I’ve always been an early to bed, early to rise kind of gal. I don’t even think my parents had to enforce a bedtime, but if they did, New Year’s Eve was the one night they didn’t. Yet, I always ended up falling asleep on my Strawberry Shortcake quilt on the floor in front of the fire. Much like a dog. Dad would nudge me awake just in time for me to watch, with sleep blurred eyes, the chaos of Times Square as the count down to the new year ended on the television. Three, two, one…Happy New Year! and then I would toddle off to bed, dragging my quilt behind me. Eventually I’d reach an age for parties and celebrating the old year moving into the new would be just an excuse for excess food and drinks.

Those years when Chris and I celebrated the New Year at The Annual Flaming Lips New Year’s Eve Freakout where probably the best ones I’ve celebrated.

Despite the state of the celebration, I’ve usually carried with me some sort of hope of better for the New Year. This is something I’ve held onto since I was small. It falls into the whole belief that something magical will happen at midnight. The December I was maybe six or seven, Katrina lost her second child in childbirth. A sadness settled in on my family that holiday season that we probably still carry with us, like layers in the earth’s crust. If you dig down deep, you’ll find a thin layer of blackness representing that year. Christmas was celebrated that year in a very melancholy fashion. I can remember being scolded for plunking out Jingle Bells on the family piano. Christmas Joy was not permissible that year and when New Year’s Eve arrived, I built my nest in front of the fire with a bowl of snacks and a Muppets mug of root beer, determined to stay awake. My little six or seven year old heart new with all its might that moving into the new year would mean happiness for my family.

No and yes. My six or seven year old little heart had yet to understand the concept of time or how my core sample would end up containing many layers of blackness wedged between layers of good earth. My core sample is a kaleidoscope.

I went to bed just after midnight with the idea that I would get up in the morning and get on my yoga mat. I would start the New Year off right and jump into action of immediate change. I had cleaned the house the day before, taken down all of Christmas the day before that, and this left my schedule for New Year’s Day free and open to possibilities. I would use that time to get myself organized mentally for the self work I have planned for 2023. Part of that plan includes renewing my own yoga practice, but I rolled over in my bed and blinked at the sunlight streaming into my window, surprised that I’d slept late enough to have sunlight streaming in my window. I crawled out of bed, fed the animals and showered. I could have rolled out my mat then, but instead I made coffee and cleaned up the few dishes leftover from our night. Then I sat at my desk and cleared out my email inbox while sipping coffee. The day is early; I can still get on my mat at some point.

You see, I still have that hope for better that comes with a New Year. I’ve just lost the belief that the better and change happens immediately. The only thing magical about the transition from the old year to the new year is that we survived another rotation around the sun. Everything else takes time and patience. My goals are marathon goals and I spent all of last year learning new skills for managing my time while being kind to myself. I spent all of last year training for those marathon goals and this is the year to start running at a reasonable pace. So I’m easing in. Slowly. On my own time.

Happy New Year.

2022 IN PICTURES

It is the time of year where I like to take a moment and look back on all that happened in a year’s time. It’s important that I do this before I start jumping ahead to the new year. My brain is already buzzing with things I want for 2023 and lately the buzz hasn’t gotten so loud that I want to start screaming like that guy studying for his midterms in Real Genius. Looking back on the year is helping my brain be less buzzy. I did some real self care work and earned a Self Care Advocate certificate of completion. We traveled some and we had moments of being silly. We made good on a promise to take the Cabbage to Canada, but what I really see when I look back at my pictures for this year is love. I captured so many moments of love. Family, friends, friends succeeding at things, people celebrating love, so much love. I want more of that in 2023.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

When I lived under my parents’ roof, we went to church. Both parents were devout Baptists and going to church meant twice on Sundays and once on Wednesdays. Even though I was developing my own views on faith and drifting away from the restrictions and hypocrisy I witnessed within the church, I continued to attend service out of respect for my parents. There was one time a year, though, where I truly enjoyed going to church and that was always for the candlelight service on Christmas Eve. Everyone in the congregation would get their own little candle and then starting at one end of each pew, a candle would be light. That person would then light the candle of the person next to them and so on and so on until all the candles in the congregation were lit. As we lit the candle of our neighbor, we said “I pass to you the light of peace and understanding.” Once all of the candles were lit, we would sing hymns of joy and peace.

It was beautiful.

During our first Christmas together, as Michael and I were driving to pick up the Cabbage for Christmas, we heard a story on NPR about lighting the menorah. Michael said that we should celebrate Hanukkah. I heartily agreed and we went on wild hunt for a menorah. We’ve been celebrating Hanukkah ever since. This year, since the first night started on Sunday, we had time to really prepare a nice meal of latkes topped with caviar and roasted salmon. Every night this week, with out prompting or reminders, we’ve lit our menorah. Michael lights the candles while I say the prayers. My favorite section is always “Blessed are you, Our God, Ruler of the Universe, for giving us life, for sustaining us, and enabling us to reach this season.” My second favorite part is when we stand for a moment after the prayer is said and the candles are lit and just watch the flames flickering.

The words behind lighting the candles in both instances is the part that I want to honor and celebrate. On one hand, you are taking a moment to have gratitude for just being here to celebrate anything. On the other hand, you are sharing your light with others. Lucia comes from the latin word lux. Names adapted from Lucia include Lucy, Luciana and Lucinda. Elena comes from the Greek Helene, meaning torch or light. My name is Lucinda Elena. I am literally named for the thing I am always searching for, the thing I am always celebrating.

Light.

Thank you for traveling with my through this year. I pass to you my light of peace.

BLISSFUL IGNORANCE

Michael’s been talking about the weather for a week and I’ve been listening but not listening if you know what I mean. Then I had a friend cancel a lunch date and Terry moved the sock party from Thursday to Wednesday. Someone else said something about a storm and then I got a little shaky and woozy because I don’t think I planned our meals around snowy weather, which is what I get for only listening. I have a real bad habit of just ignoring the happenings of the world around me and just going about my business as if any of those said happenings are not going to impact my ability to go about my business.

To be fair, there was at least thirty four years of my life when I could get away with this mentality. If it snows or ices in Oklahoma, things just down and the whole do I or don’t I go to work question is answered for you. Meteorologists start screaming about the sky falling two weeks before hand and do a pretty decent job of putting the fear in you so that you have all the things you need to make French toast. The Meteorologists here are less YOU’RE GOING TO DIE IF YOU EVEN LOOK OUT THE WINDOW and more practical. They say things like make sure you have a decent supply if ice-melt and give yourself plenty of time to get from point A to point B and if you don’t really need to get from point A to point B, stay home. Now I have to decide if I need to get from point A to Point B. Since I tend to lean towards danger, I usually choose the worst possible scenario. Even though Michael says things like “I am not cleaning off your car or shoveling the drive way. You can stay home like a sensible human.” Though, he never says the sensible human part because he knows I’d punch him in the throat for saying it. Also, it makes him feel bad when I clean off my car by myself and shovel the driveway, but then I feel bad for making him do it.

It is a vicious circle.

Monday morning, the weather talk was getting to me and I texted Michael that I was freaking out about food, weather and my credit card (another blissfully ignorant thing I’ve got going). He told me that I would go to work on Tuesday. He said I would go to work on Wednesday, but probably come home early and Thursday we would most likely be Netflixing and chilling. Then I remembered we bought fancy cheeses at Whole Foods and I bought bread. We could make fancy grilled cheeses and I felt better because this felt like a real plan. He said some other reassuring things about my credit card and now, I think maybe I won’t lean towards the dangerous option for Thursday.

Winter is for real happening here this week. Be sure to gather your French toast ingredients sooner rather than later.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

The most perfect snowflake landed on my windshield and I did not take a picture of it. I tried. I dug my phone out of my bag and started to set the macro settings, but in the time it took me to do all of that, the snowflake melted. I sat there for a few minutes watching little star shaped flakes collide with the glass but gave up on the idea of taking the picture.

Beautiful things don’t ask for attention. - James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

In the last few weeks, I have neglected to tap the shutter button or even get my camera out from under my bra strap (this is where I carry my phone, like a holster). I will admit that some of the reason for this is that I’m just not feeling it. The other side of that is that I’ve been fully engaged in recent activities as opposed to just observing from the other side of a lens. Stepping out from behind the camera is not unusual for me during this time of the year. The lack of color and sun in winter time is less than inspiring. At least for me. I do make an occasional attempt at stepping outside with the camera, but I can’t deny that I am a warm weather bird. Lately, it has felt more important to be part of the conversation with the group I have gathered with than it is to photograph the group.

In February of last year, Roze gave us all in the Self Care Circle an assignment to write a letter to ourselves. She gave us those letters last week along with a note to maybe write a new letter to ourselves before reading the one from February. I wrote a new note to myself on Sunday and in that letter I told myself how important it is for me to seek out beauty with my camera. In the last few weeks, I’ve had two different people bring up the topic of showing my prints. I am grateful for that time I spent not taking the picture of the snowflakes. They were beautiful, but it got me thinking. Beautiful things may not ask for attention, but that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve attention. I ended the letter I wrote to myself in February with “You are enough. Really…at the end of the day…this is the only thing you need to remember.” Those words meant something different to me then. Now, those words feel like a blessing, a whisper saying “your photos are beautiful and they deserve attention.” My creations are enough.

It is time to start considering my next showing.

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM

Deborah sent out a group text to me and Amy describing a dream she’d had about Chris. It was a beautiful dream, a visit from a great supporter at a time in her life when she probably needed to hear the things he had to say to her. As I read her text though, I couldn’t help but feel a little jealous. It’s been a while since I have dreamed of Chris. In some ways, that’s good. My dreams of Chris are often not good ones. I am sure it’s because of my own projections of inadequacy and how I failed him in the end. Feelings only I have. I would still take this angry disappointed version of him visiting my dreams. There’s a part of me that relishes the abuse.

That night after Deborah’s text, I dreamed of Chris. We were making out in his dorm room. It was so real, like I wasn’t sleeping, but time traveling back to our early days. I could feel his lips touching mine, his tongue grazing over my teeth. The heat of our breath mingled together and it was delicious. There was no speaking, only touching and I woke up disappointed in not seeing his face next to me on the pillow. I thought about how two days before he died he asked me if that when I got home from work, we could have sex. I said yes. I said yes to everything he asked for then. I didn’t end up going to work that day and we did not have sex. Chris’s decline was quick. He was in no physical shape for it and I, recognizing that we only had hours left, was in no emotional state for it. Instead, I curled myself up next to him and cried while I waited for the hospice nurse to show up.

Coward

It was a craving for human touch that sent me into the world of online dating. All of those ridiculous dates and I could never bring myself to touch any of those men. None of them bold enough to make an approach. Except Michael, but he already had ideas that I was only online for the sex. Maybe that made him braver than all the others. I’ve never been good at initiating and I’m not ambitious. Chris and I probably would still be in friend zone if he hadn’t made the first move. It is quite the quandary to crave physical affection without being able to easily give physical affection. I’m polite….”no, you first.” The reality is that even now, I feel awkward and gangly and geeky and have no idea what to do with myself in a situation of want. Except freeze like I’ve been caught in headlights. Swerve or crash. It’s up to the one behind the wheel.

Intimacy is so much easier in written words. Safer. A better way to communicate. I feel like I lack the ability to verbally communicate in a way that the people around me understand what it is that I am really saying.

I’m better off writing letters.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Josephine turned nine years old yesterday. Nine! I can’t believe it. I watch my friends posting pictures of their kids on social media and I am always marveling at how those kids grow and change. It slays me. This week, my great-nephew turned twenty seven. He was born the year after I graduated high school. I sent him a birthday message reminding him about the time he was so little he could not stand up in the crooked house at Silver Dollar City. He just kept falling over and we laughed and laughed and laughed. Now he’s a grown ass human being with a job and a wife.

Ugh.

When Michael brought Josephine home, she was so little that she fit perfectly on his shoulder like a parrot. She didn’t stay small for long. All of her growing changes happened in the span of a year. So for the last seven years, Josephine hasn’t aged. She still looks the same. Mostly. Recently, I’ve noticed that when she gets up from laying in one spot for too long, she has to really stretch the stiffness out of her little legs. That’s the only visible sign of her age. She still chases the cat and attacks the vacuum. Her little legs do not slow down as we trek through the neighborhood on our walks and she can shake the stuffing out of any toy.

Sometimes Michael will say something about how it might be time to get another dog and I seriously consider it. I’ll spend few hours scrolling through adoptable pets online and will even find one that I think about making a call on. Then I think about money and the size of our house. I don’t think we can really afford two dogs. Our couch isn’t really big enough for two dogs. Josephine is so used to being the only child. I mean, she does well with other dogs with a few exceptions. She loves Sarge who will not give her the time of day and she can hold her own with Terry’s gang. I’m sure she would be okay with sharing her home with another dog. I think the problem is me. I’m not sure if I am capable of opening my heart even more to fit another dog. I realize how that sounds, but I honestly think I have a one dog at a time kind of heart. Josephine has filled it up. Of course she has! Have you seen her?!? She’s the most wonderful puppy in the whole wide world.

I am grateful to be celebrating another year of Josephine Boisdechene Clofullia.

THE RUSH

Saturday evening, I was finishing addressing Christmas cards while we watched Bullet Train, when Michael said “why haven’t we received any Christmas cards?!?” I paused to look at him and then responded with “Slow your roll. It’s only the third day of December.” Though, I do have to fess up and admit to feeling a little anxious about how time is flying by and it does sort of feel like Christmas is tomorrow. With the exception of some stocking stuffers, I am done with all of my Christmas present shopping responsibilities. There’s really nothing left for me to do but sit back and celebrate.

Except that’s not how my brain works.

Instead of just soaking in the joys of the holiday season, I’m already planning ahead for 2023. In fact, I feel as if I have already projected myself into the future. Kelly approached me last week to discuss co-teaching a yoga workshop in January. She asked me if I was qualified to teach continuing education hours and I had to go the Yoga Alliance website to figure it out. Turns out I have been doing this yoga thing long enough that I can now teach continuing education hours. I am a little bit floored by this and I am suddenly very aware of how my whole yoga teacher side gig may morph into some thing bigger in the next year or so. Since moving to Kansas City, I’ve had a fairly laisseze faire attitude towards teaching. I have been hesitant to accept teaching opportunities and strict with my imposed rule of teaching no more than two classes a week. I am committed to maintaining some teaching boundaries, but at the same time I might be ready to stretch out my boundaries.

Currently, the wheels in my head are turning around how I am going to fit the anatomy of the shoulder and hips, all the yoga strap modifications to support those joints and an hour of asana with a yoga strap into a three hour workshop. Then those wheels set in motion other wheels in my head on my future creative endeavors. I want to pursue some creative stuff, but I also don’t want to burn candles at both ends. How much do I really need to fill up each day and still leave room for rest. Because rest is the thing I really should be focusing on in this present moment. I am still sick. I have woken up three mornings in a row with a sore throat/ear situation and it is not from sleeping with my mouth open. I have the chew mark lines on the inside of my cheeks to prove it. It’s fine as long as I can peel myself out of bed. Once I’ve showered, used my Neti pot, and downed a shot of DayQuil, I’m good to go. I can get through the day with lots of lemon, honey and mint tea. Until sometime around 3:30. That’s usually when you’ll find me curled up under my desk at work.

But it’s fine.

Really.

I have yet to get around to erasing November from our dry-erase calendar and filling in all the things for December. I plan on sitting down this evening and doing this activity. I kind of have a feeling that just the action of acknowledging that the month of December is happening will anchor me more into the here and now. December is not a leap month. It is a month that deserves to be savored as we celebrate all the good things the year has brought us and reflecting on the not so good things. It is a month for soaking in as much light and warmth as we can in order to sustain us through the next few months of darkness and cold. It is a month for me to throw a stick into those turning wheels in my brain. My focus for this week is to do the bare minimum.

I might be able to manage that.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I had a bag of dried lupini beans that I purchased on a whim from the local Halal Market the last time we were in, stocking up on spices. I didn’t know anything about them other than they looked like lima beans, so I thought I’d just cook them like lima beans.

This batch of beans started out with promise. I had sautéed onions, bell pepper and garlic before adding the beans and stirring in a tablespoon of miso with the water that I added for cooking. I tossed in some salt, cajun spices and a bayleaf (for no reason) and let the beans cook for about twenty minutes before I tasted the broth to check the flavoring. I sipped the broth and said “This is not good.” Michael was in the middle of his weekly lunch prep and turned around to say “That’s not true…let me taste.” Then he tasted the broth and said “No..it’s fine….wait…this is not good.” Then we went down the list of things I had added to make it so horrible and bitter.

Beans…I had added beans. Lupini beans have to be soaked overnight, cooked until just tender, and then rinsed and soaked again for 5-7 days in order to remove bitterness.

It was quite a blow to my ego. I was left staring at my cast iron pot filled with what should have been a delicious healthy meal, but instead was a pot of ruin. I’m good at beans. It’s in my wheelhouse of cooking superpowers. I felt terrible. We ended up ordering out for Indian food, but not before I was texting Heather about my bean fail. Heather referred to them as ‘sneaky beans’. She told me that I had not failed at cooking beans; these were sneaky beans. Of course, she’s one hundred percent right and I knew/know this. I know that the only fault I had made was thinking these beans were just like all the other dried beans, but sometimes you need someone to reassure you.

Heather is always a good source for reassurance and I am so grateful for her, but she is not my only source. I am very blessed and thankful for my group of supporters and I can only hope that I give as good as I get.

HOLIDAY. CELEBRATE.

This has been the most relaxed Thanksgiving Holiday since we were forced to isolate during the worst COVID year of 2020. Wednesday evening, after I’d finished making the pies to take over to Terry’s, Michael made Korean Fried chicken for our dinner. Then we decided to never fry anything every again. The end. Thursday morning, I attended, and ended up assisting, a Deep Stretch Yoga class taught by Kelly and hosted by Co-op Fitness. We were not expected at Terry’s until four that afternoon and the only thing I had to do was put my tofurkey in the oven.

We spent our Thanksgiving evening at Terry’s where I absorbed as much laughter and love as I could and drank way too much gin. I dragged myself out of bed the next morning, ate a piece of apple pie for breakfast and then went grocery shopping. I went to Aldi and there was no one there. Grocery shopping has never been easier. It was wonderful. Then we went to IKEA and it was the SAME. Deserted! Which never happens on any afternoon. We had to walk backwards through that store twice (don’t ask) and there was no feeling of swimming against traffic. Our next stop was Costco and that place was just as dead as IKEA and for once, I didn’t nearly go insane trying to maneuver our cart up down the isles. Our errand run went so well on Friday, that I came home and set up most of our Christmas. All I had left to do on Saturday was hang stockings, set up my outside Christmas elephant, and finish up the laundry. As luck would have it, my Christmas cards arrived and I got all of them addressed (mostly…I had to place another order).

Sunday was left completely free. There was nothing that needed to be done and I chose to spend my time watching Wednesday on Netflix while working on my lesson plan for a six week beginning yoga series. Then, I spent an hour and half on my yoga mat and ruined a pot of beans (it was the bean and I’m not ready to talk about it). It was such a great holiday that I decided to extend it for a day because the cold that the Cabbage passed to Michael, finally made it to me. Last night it felt like Michael and I were competing for who had the loudest cough. He’s winning.

Today’s Facebook memory was from ten years ago.

I just blew a snot bubble out my nose. I think I should put this as a skill in my online dating profile.

So, really nothing has changed. Or at least not much.

This is the last week of the second to the last month of this year and I have mixed feelings. I have no desire to think about any of the things I did not accomplish this year. At the same time, I don’t really feel like bragging about the things I did accomplish this year. I don’t want to go on about how the month of December feels busy and rushed. There’s not that much more on my calendar for the month of December then there was for any other month this year. Every year is like a giant pot of soup of my own making and I’m really good at making soup (ignoring the whole beans incident; not all beans cook like beans). My soups are guaranteed to have onions, garlic, mixed vegetables and vegetable broth. The rest of the ingredients vary depending on availability and mood. It always turns out to be delicious and satisfying. The same can be said about each year. My perspective in regards to calendar obligations has shifted.

And that’s probably my biggest accomplishment.

FAMILY AND GRATITUDE

Missy B’s

Gaels Public House and Sports

Woody’s KC

Side Kicks Saloon

Sidestreet

Buddies

These are all safe places for our LGBTQ+ community to gather and any one of them could be Club Q. Politics is just a symptom of the division in this country. It is a symptom of fear, an emotion that drives hate and jealousy. The people in this country who consistently support and elect government officials who promote hate are people who feel small and scared. They are jealous of those who live their lives authentically. They will go to their graves being fearful of those who are different and filled with hate for those of us who are brave enough to love. I’m not saying we should feel sorry for these people, though I do pity them. I’m saying that they will not be swayed into another way of thinking.

Our voices have got to be louder, our actions bigger.

Two-thirds (64%) of respondents had experienced anti-LGBT+ violence or abuse. Of those that had experienced anti-LGBT+ violence and abuse: 9 in 10 had experienced verbal abuse (92%). 3 in 10 had been subject to physical violence (29%). 2 in 10 had experienced sexual violence (17%).

Galop Hate Crime Report 2021

Ways to help Club Q victims:

• Colorado Healing Fund

• Good Judy Garage raising money for funeral and medical costs

• Blood Donations

Michael and I are spending Thanksgiving with the family I built, a group of men who introduced me to all of those places I listed above. When Richard Fierro was interviewed about tackling the Club Q gunman, he said that all he was thinking was that he had to protect his family. I can’t say that I would not do the same. I am so grateful to have them in my life. They make me a better human just by knowing their names. In a memorial service this week, one of our grad students said “I love all of you. I wish I had said this more often, but I am no longer waiting to say it. I love you.”

I love all of you.

IN SEARCH OF SOME MOXIE

Years ago, on one of Chris and I’s many adventures to Pop’s, we stumbled across Moxie Cherry Cola. Pop’s is a famous Route 66 attraction in Oklahoma. Their claim to fame is their selection of obscure and bizarre sodas. If I remember correctly, this trip took place before Pixar released Up and I gravitated to that particular soda because of the name. I remember holding it up for Chris and saying “I’ve got Moxie!” He chuckled and then we both bought a bottle of their Cherry Cola.

I am not, nor have every been, much of a soda drinker. For the first thirteen years of my life, soda was mostly off limits in our household and by the time I was old enough to choose for myself, I lacked an acquired taste for it. Occasionally I crave a Coke but then I’ll take two or three slurps of it and will not want any more of it. Chris and Todd were wandering Walmart right when Coke released those little cans of soda. Todd looked at them and scoffed “Who’s going to drink this tiny amount of Coke?!?!” Chris immediately replied “Cindy. Those cans were made for Cindy.” I can’t even finish one of those. About the only soda I will finish these days is a Mexican Coke and it will take me a long time to finish that bottle.

That Moxie Cherry Cola was the best cherry cola I had ever tasted and if given the opportunity, I would always have a supply of them in my fridge.

This is the thing I look for every time we wander into a specialty soda shop or candy store. I walk past all the cherry mashes and slow pokes and make a beeline for the soda isles. Then I scan them for Moxie. That first Moxie might have been my last because I have not found a cherry cola Moxie since. Soon after we saw Up, Chris made me bottle cap pin like the one Ellie gives Carl when they first meet. He used a Moxie bottle cap and it’s been pinned to whatever daily bag I’m using ever since. He was always Ellie.

On our way home from Rockaway Beach, Michael drove out of the way to take us all to Redmon’s Candy Factory and the World’s Largest Gift Shop, a warehouse filled with keychains, magnets and t-shirts. Michael and The Cabbage made it into the candy shop before me because I was outside taking pictures. By the time I made it in, they were already onto the second isle. I walked right to the sodas. Michael saw me and said “They don’t have it. I already looked.” Now he’s in on my quest for Moxie Cherry Cola. Sometimes I wonder if there’s been a role reversal. I’m no longer Carl, but maybe an Ellie.

No…I’m still a Carl. The difference is that I’ve become the version of Carl at the end of the movie. Chris will always be an Ellie.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

This week, we saw our first real snow of the season. Technically, there was snow a couple of weeks ago, but it happened early on Saturday morning with only a handful of people to witness it. Me being one of them since I get up with the sun even on Saturdays. The day turned out to be sunny and warm though and no one believed when I said that it had snowed that morning. This week was real, honest to goodness, snow that quickly melted. Though there is still some on the roof of my car. The weather was warm enough for the snow to melt on the ground, but then quickly fell back into freezing temperatures for the rest of the week. Morning walks do not happen during such conditions.

I have wavered between getting up and onto my mat in the early morning hours when I am usually walking Josephine and snuggling back down under the covers. The snuggling back down under the covers has been the winner for most mornings. I get up to open the pet door for Josephine and the cat. Then I hop right back under the covers. It only takes a few minutes of being out in the cold for Josephine to have the same idea. She comes running back inside and jumps on the bed as I lift the comforter for her. Then she curls her little body up as close as she can to mine. This is where we stay for another hour or so before I get up to feed her and the cat. Then Josephine and I have moment of snuggling and tussling while I wait for my turn in the shower.

At first I felt really guilty about not taking the walks. Especially because Josephine gets so freaking excited just at the sight of her leash. These moments of snuggle and play time that we have had this week eases that guilt of not walking. Michael’s moms had to say goodbye to their little dog over the weekend and then a Facebook friend had to say goodbye to her best kitty. So, I feel pretty good about skipping the walks in favor of showering Josephine with extra love.

Treats for everyone.

Speaking of treats for everyone. Tomorrow is Michael’s birthday. He’s been talking about being in his late forties for months now, sometimes with a tone of excitement and sometimes with a tone of dismay. Michael changed up is diet after our return from Vancouver. Then he made appointments with doctors and scheduled routine tests. He’s checking his blood pressure and monitoring his salt intake. He eats a banana every morning. It looks like he has plans to live past the age of fifty. Sometimes, I’m really surprised he sticks around (for various reasons), but then he talks about our future together. A lake house. Travel. Retirement. I am thankful for his random acts of kindness like yesterday morning when I walked out to my car and Michael had scraped my windshield for me. I am thankful for his raccoon/possum/even squirrel trapping skills that he didn’t even know he had until this year. I’m thankful for how he insists on getting my car washed which is something I never bothered doing unless I couldn’t see out the windows. I’m thankful that in spite of those vague various reasons that he still sticks around.

Here’s to surviving another rotation around the sun.